Thousands reported back for work at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on Thursday, ending a strike in which 45 people died, but miners at Amplats barricaded a street with burning tires and the firm said it had been badly hit by a walkout over pay

MARIKANA, South Africa — Thousands reported back for work at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on Thursday, ending a strike in which 45 people died, but miners at Amplats barricaded a street with burning tires and the firm said it had been badly hit by a walkout over pay.

A police helicopter hovered above a shanty town near Amplats mines at Rustenburg, 100 km (70 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. Armed officers backed by armoured vehicles and water cannon were on stand-by.

There were no reports of clashes but Anglo American Platinum , or Amplats, the world’s top producer of the precious metal, reported only one in five of its workers had turned up at its Rustenburg mines.

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It is clear the wave of wildcat strikes in the mining sector has not ended with the signing this week of a pay deal at Lonmin Lonmin , a smaller platinum producer.

Lonmin released details on Thursday of the wage settlement which will add 14 percent to its wage bill from Oct. 1, a huge strain on a company with a shaky balance sheet and rising costs on other fronts.

The unrest has its roots in a bloody turf war between an upstart union and the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and it has sent world platinum prices soaring.

The police shooting of 34 Lonmin strikers on Aug. 16 – the bloodiest security incident since the end of apartheid in 1994 – also piled pressure on President Jacob Zuma, who was forced to call in the army to back up stretched police.

Economists say the precedent set by the big Lonmin pay rise could ripple through an economy saddled with uncompetitive labour costs, stoking inflation and curbing the central bank’s ability to cut interest rates to boost spluttering growth.

Amplats said in a statement its Rustenburg “process operations” had resumed full production. The mood among those still on strike was uncompromising.

“We’ll buy 20 litres of petrol and if police get violent, we’ll make petrol bombs and throw them at them,” said Lawrence Mudise, an Amplats rock driller, holding a sign demanding 16,700 rand ($2,000) a month, a hefty premium on his current salary.

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse a crowd of men carrying spears and machetes in a squatter camp near the site on Wednesday.

“We’ll not go to work until we get what we want. Our kids have been shot at, our families have been terrorised and brutalised, but we are not going back to work,” one miner, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.

LONMIN JUBILATION

A few kilometres away at Lonmin’s Marikana mine, thousands of workers reported for their first shift since early August.

Many shouted “We are reporting for work” in Fanagalo, a pidgin mix of Zulu, English and other African languages.

The miners were delighted after securing wage rises of up to 22 percent. “I feel very happy that I can go back to work now,” said Nqukwe Sabulelo, a rock-driller at the mine. “I’m going to live well now.”

The hefty wage settlement has stirred up trouble in the gold sector, with some 15,000 miners at the KDC West operation of Gold Fields, the world’s fourth largest bullion producer, holding an illegal strike.

The Gold Fields protest is fuelled by discontent with the local leadership of the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Gold Fields said this week it would not entertain demands for a minimum wage of 12,500 rand despite losing 1,400 ounces a day – close to 15 percent of group production.

NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni said the union, a key political ally of the ruling African National Congress, was trying to help.

The stand-off threatens the NUM-dominated collective wage-bargaining that has typified South African industrial relations since apartheid.

“We are trying to narrow the demands and get them to go back while we negotiate,” Baleni told reporters.

Part of the African National Congress-led ruling alliance, the country’s biggest group of unions this week, acknowledged the challenge posed by the rise of the militant AMCU union and the need for change.

“The labour movement needs to renew itself,” said Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

“There is the danger of finding ourselves … outflanked by the new independent unions which are emerging as a result of dissatisfaction from the shop floor.”

VIDEO FROM THE “HILL OF HORROR” MASSACRE IN AUGUST — WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

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